Oh boy!

Well, life in the Orlowski household is about to get a whole lot more busy / fun / interesting (pick your adjective). Meet Maverick:

He's a 10 week old German Shepherd / Husky mix. We knew we were looking for a dog and even though I stalked Petfinder every single day, we didn't find a pup that was right for us. Adam and I decided to take a trip out to Manchester to a pet store / doggy daycare that we'd visited a few times before. Every time I'd been there the dogs have always been clean, healthy looking, friendly and well-taken care of. At first we took out a teeny Bull Terrier puppy who turned out they were charging $2,000 for!! (He was ADORABLE until I found out that price tag. Then he was not so cute anymore...) We put him back immediately. Then we saw at the end in one of the big cages a litter of pups. Three white ones, a black one and a tan & black one. First we played with the black one. She was cute and seemed calm when she was in with her litter mates but once she was out she was determined to destroy something belonging to us. lol She was not easily distracted and all-in-all did not seem a good fit for us. We put her back and I told Adam to just grab one of the white ones. Maverick happened to be one of the ones clambering to get out of there and was the one he grabbed. From the start he seemed pretty mellow and easy-going. He was MUCH easier to re-direct then his sister was. He'd start chewing on my purse and we'd just tell him no and give him a tennis ball. He would be content to play with that. After a while of playing with him and seeing how good he was around Miranda we decided that he was the one for us. He just seemed to fit in with us. Calm (for a puppy), relaxed and just very go-with-the-flow. We have some leash work to do, he doesn't quite understand that yet but we'll get there.

He loves to chew but luckily, is really enjoying the toys and bones we had in the house from previous canine inhabitants. I stayed up until 1:00 with him last night and he never once gave me an issue. *Knock on wood* No potty accidents yet. He seems like he'll be fairly easy to train and he is very much a take it as it comes kind of guy. Nothing seems to scare him. I vacuumed and he walked right up to it. He doesn't want to hurt the cats, just play. The cats are adjusting, slowly. They'll get there. He loves his crate (who wouldn't it's a mansion to him, lol) and didn't make much of a peep all for the 4 hours he was in there last night. Adam took him out first thing this morning at 5am and he pooped, but still hasn't peed yet. Making me very nervous! lol Adam's out there with him now before he takes off for work. I would expect a LOT of future blog posts about this little guy, so get used to his adorable face.

Today, after my appointment most likely, I plan on giving him a bath with a REALLY moisturizing shampoo. He's very itchy. We've checked him 20 times all over for fleas so we're pretty sure it's a dry skin issue and not a parasite one. For now, I think I'll just enjoy having a puppy around the house and all the fun times that go along with that.